Poster #118 - Validation of the Social and Emotional Assets and Resilience Scales (SEARS) for Syrian refugee youth

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Methods, History, Theory

Integrative Statement

Since 2011, the civil war in Syria has displaced over 5 million people; nearly half of which (47.5%) are children (UNHCR, 2017). In search of safety, families are forced to lead a migratory lifestyle for years, disrupting the educational, social, and emotional lives of their children. With the experience of war, leaving their homes, and residing in camps, Syrian refugee families are often subjected to poverty, sub-par living conditions, death, and violence (Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2015). Once resettled, Syrian refugee children are expected to attend school, and adapt to new cultures, academic expectations, language, norms, and instances of perceived discrimination, while also maintaining their ethnic identity, family expectations, and their culture-of-origin (Berry, 1997; Liebkind & Jesinskaja-Lahti, 2000). The psychological demands of these circumstances may affect the social and emotional development of Syrian refugee children, increasing their risk for acculturative stress, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Jabbar & Zaza, 2014; Sirin & Sirin, 2015). Thus far, scholars have understandably focused on mental health problems and risk factors; however, scant research has looked at strengths and protective factors, such as social-emotional skills, that serve to negate poor outcomes.
Scholars have begun intervention efforts to address these concerns with some success (Madziva & Thondhlana, 2017; Shuayb, 2016); however, one challenge to intervention research is the lack of validated instruments appropriate for use with the Syrian refugee population (Painter-Brick et al, 2017). The purpose of this study is to validate an existing measure of social and emotional skills for use with Syrian refugee children and adolescents.
The Social and Emotional Assets and Resilience Scales, both the child and adolescent versions (SEARS-C and SEARS-A; Merrell, 2011) are 32 to 35-item self-report rating scales, measuring specific social-emotional skills in students in grades 3-6 and 7-12, respectively. Subscales include: Self-Regulation, Responsibility, Social Competence, and Empathy. Due to differences in dialect across regions in Syria, questions and instructions on the measure were translated and back-translated into formal Arabic, common to everyday media and news.
Thus far, 20 Syrian youth, ages 10-18, recruited from nonprofit organizations in the southern U.S., have completed the scale. To date, scale reliability demonstrates high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha scale scores 0.87 to 0.92). Once a larger sample is obtained, convergent validity will be assessed by correlating results with the externalization and internalization scales of the Child Behavior Checklist-Youth Self Report (CBCL-YSR; Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1991). A similar correlation calculation will be conducted between the SEARS-A and SEARS-C and the Acculturative Stress in Children (ASIC; Suarez-Morales, Dillon, & Szapocznik, 2007) measure to understand divergent validity. Presenters will discuss the reliability and validity of the adapted version of the SEARS-A as well as implications for research and practice with Syrian refugee youth.

Authors

• Ana Carina d'Abreu, Doctoral Student
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah K. Ura, Texas A&M University
  Presenting Author